Perfect Storm

Chapter 9

Draco woke to find the sun beaming through his bedroom window. When he rolled over he was unsurprised, yet still irked, to find his bed empty. With a growl, he fell onto his back and stared up at the ceiling. He wasn't so much upset with Hermione as he was with himself for caring about her leaving every morning.

She had been right the other day about him being the one that always does the leaving. He never brought women back to his flat. He had learned that lesson the first time. He had to all but shove the nosey witch out of his flat. After that, Draco always let women do the inviting and he soon was able to suss which ones couldn't care less where he went the next day, and which ones would be overly clingy come sunrise. For the latter, he'd feign sleep and sneak out as soon as possible.

Why were things different with Hermione Granger? Simple, he told himself. She didn't have a flat to take him back to. And while he truly didn't care that Harry and Ginny knew about them sleeping together, he wasn't too keen to shag her when their best friends were in the next room.

While he was trying to make up an excuse for why he hated that she snuck out on him, he heard the front door open and then click shut. Draco bolted out of bed, threw on his boxers, grabbed his wand, and dashed out of the bedroom. He almost ran straight into Hermione, who holding a paper bag and coffee carrier.

"What are you doing here?" he asked quickly, lowering his wand.

Hermione narrowed her eyes at him and muttered, "I can't fucking win with you, can I?", before striding off to the kitchen.

"What's that supposed to mean?" he demanded, following at her heels.

She gave an irritated huff and tossed the bag on the table. "You want me to stick around in the morning, this is what me sticking around looks like- breakfast." And she pushed a cup of coffee into his hands. "I was going to cook something, but you have fuck all in, so I went to the shop across the street and got bagels. I wasn't sure how you like your coffee, so there's cream and sugar in the bag if you need it."

"Oh," Draco replied guiltily. He peeked into the bag and pulled out two packs of sugar and a poppy seed bagel. "Thank you. I usually don't eat breakfast."

"That's stupid," Hermione said, settling into a seat and smearing a glob of cream cheese onto an everything bagel. "Breakfast is the best. Pancakes, waffles, crepes, bacon..."

"Fair enough, but that requires cooking." He spread a thin layer of cream cheese onto his own bagel and took a bite. "I can't cook."

"Can't or don't? I hear there's a big difference."

"Can't. As inept as Potter in that skill set. If it's not toast or cereal, I don't bother."

"Then what do you do for food?"

"Mostly pubs or take-out. Ginny invites me over for dinner once a week usually, and sometimes my mother insists on me coming over for a meal." Hermione looked at him as though he had two heads. "We can't all be gourmet cooks, Granger. Put me in a potions lab and I'm good, but I have no idea what to do with a chicken."

"Pretty sure if you can concoct potions you could cook something." Hermione sipped her coffee and relaxed back into the chair.

They sat together in silence, each making their way through a second bagel. Draco wasn't sure what else to say. He wasn't great at small talk and it almost felt like he was forcing his company on Hermione. As much as he hated to admit it, it was nice that she hadn't slunk away during the early hours, but now he felt guilty for turning it into such a petty issue.

With a heavy sigh, Draco broke the silence. "If you want to leave, you can. Sorry I made such a big deal out of it the other times. You don't have to stick around if you'd rather ditch the scene."